Friday

The Perry Freedom Center is located in the bottom commercial space at 1210 2nd St., while New Opportunities is located at 1212 2nd St. The top floors feature apartments.

“The reason I bought the building is it was such a good deal, I couldn’t pass it up when I heard about it,” Christianson said. The property was purchased under Perry Apartments, LLC.

In addition to his work as a realtor in Ames, Christianson is also a contractor and property manager.

“My wife and I have 15 units now and we’ve always told ourselves that we want to make it a place that we would like to live,” Christianson said.

He has eight units in Perry. Of those units, two are one-bedroom apartments and six are two-bedroom apartments.

Christianson doesn’t plan on updating the bottom commercial spaces. Instead, he is focusing on the upstairs apartments.

He currently has three vacant apartments. One that he is gutting, one that he is fixing up and one that was recently vacated.

He plans to fix up two of the apartments as much as he can through September. He would like to have those ready to be rented by Oct. 1. The apartment he is currently fixing up will have a new bathroom and kitchen, with new cabinets and appliances.

Christianson said his plan is to get the units rented, have some cash flow coming in and then start more of the major work in the spring. He is working on finalizing financing and a grant for the spring work.

The work Christianson is doing at 1210, 1212 and 1212 ½ 2nd St. joins other building updates in the downtown area.

Work is continuing on the former Stitches in Time building, located at 1201 2nd St.. The front awning and windows were recently removed. Owner JR Sheffer said in an earlier interview that he hopes to be open in the late fall.

Work is also progressing at the upcoming business Salvaged Soul, located at 1114 2nd St. Owner Pat Snyder said in an earlier interview that she also hopes to be open this fall.

Christianson said he likes seeing work being done on other buildings on Perry’s 2nd Street.